Scleroglossa

Scleroglossa
Gold dust day gecko (also known as Madagascar day geckos)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Squamata
Suborder:	Scleroglossa
Infraorders
Amphisbaenia Anguimorpha Gekkota Scincomorpha Serpentes

Scleroglossa is the previously recognized suborder of Squamata (snakes and lizards) that contains the geckos, anguids, worm lizards, monitor lizards, such as helodermatids, skinks and snakes. The name is derived from the Greek, skleros, meaning hard and glossa, meaning tongue.

Traditionally, Squamata has been divided into Scleroglossa and Iguania. This split was based on features of the tongue; iguanians have a muscular tongue and use lingual prehension to capture food, whereas scleroglossans have hard tongues and use teeth-and-jaw prehension to capture food, freeing the tongue for chemosensory activity. More recently it has been proposed that iguanians are more derived and highly nested within Squamata along with snakes and anguimorphs. This discovery does not support the split between scleroglossans and iguanians and renders the Scleroglossa taxon obsolete. A new clade Bifurcata (bifurcated tongue) has been proposed that would include Iguanians nested highly within Scleroglossa.

• Infraorder Amphisbaenia – worm lizards
• Infraorder Anguimorpha – ananguids (alligator lizards, glass lizards, galliwasps and legless lizards), monitor lizards, mosasaurs, and helodermatids (Gila monster and beaded lizard)
• Infraorder Gekkota – (the geckos)
• Infraorder Scincomorpha – (skinks, whiptail lizards and common European lizards)
• Infraorder Serpentes – snakes

References

Media related to Scleroglossa at Wikimedia Commons Data related to Scleroglossa at Wikispecies